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Chapter 4 - CH04 - A Way Out?

After Raha somewhat recovered from the pain, Gunnar took her to the remaining three rooms in the chamber.

Gunnar was no longer holding her hand.

For some reason, she felt like cutting his hand off for touching her, but she controlled her emotions and said, "Please don't grab my hand without my permission."

Gunnar was a bit bewildered by her response. "O-Okay."

He wondered how she'd feel if he told her that he had to put his mouth in her mouth many times to breathe air into her.

Not wanting to unnecessarily upset her, he didn't bring that up.

"And why are you rushing into these rooms? There could be traps, so we should be more careful," she warned as they stopped by the second room.

"If I could break these doors, I wouldn't ask for your help," he replied.

Sighing, Raha tried to pour aura into her sword, but then frowned and bit on her lower lip. "Strange… my aura feels heavy.." She momentarily dropped the sword and pressed two fingers at her temple. She could feel a vein throbbing hard. "It's the immortium. It's giving me a headache."

"I don't feel any headache."

"That's probably because you don't have any aura."

She grabbed the sword again, refusing to let the immortium win over her. "I'll make it quick." She took a deep breath and cut the stone door in a few swings, then huffed.

Gunnar carefully entered the room. His jaw dropped, and the same happened to Raha who was behind him. This room was full of gold coins,

"Just how much gold is all this?" Gunnar's heart was racing. He threw the coins into the air and laughed.

"Millions of gold…" Raha was feeling tired and drained. "Even in my sect's repository, there probably isn't this much gold. Who the hell gathered this much money? They must have been a famous bandit group back in their time."

 "If we take all this money outside, we'll be super rich," Gunnar excitedly said.

"How are you going to carry this much money?" she asked him. "I don't have any storage item with me. First, let's find a way out."

Raha went to the third room and thrust her sword.

Her weapon slipped, missing its mark by a foot. The sword got stuck in the wall and repelled her. Raha got pushed back. She clicked her tongue. That shouldn't have happened.

Her nose bled. She hadn't even pushed herself that hard.

"Y-You are bleeding. You should take some rest first," Gunnar said, almost putting his hand on her face, but he pulled his hand back fast.

"The longer we stay here, the worse it'll get," Raha forced herself to swing the sword and managed to break the door open.

The third room, to their surprise, was full of fruit trees and rare herbs that neither of them could recognize. Even the fruits were foreign to them.

"I'm decently confident in my knowledge about plants and herbs," Raha stated, "but what are all these things? They must be absorbing the light from the crystals in the walls and are growing in return."

Gunnar tried to eat what looked like a banana but with thorns on its skin.

She quickly slapped his hand. "What will you do if it's poisonous, you fool!"

"They smell nice, so I don't think they're poisonous," Gunnar was also a bit experienced in roaming the mountains, looking for herbs, so he had a basic idea about which plant to eat and which one to not.

He then grabbed the banana-like thing at its base and pulled it, but to his shock, he wasn't able to break it. He pulled it with both hands, but it wasn't working. He got tired in the end.

Raha sighed and pushed him aside and pulled the banana casually. To her embarrassment, it didn't break. She put in more strength, but the result didn't change.

"What the…" she put all of her strength and roared.

The stem started bending a little, but it was far from breaking. She found herself gasping.

"You're kidding me, right? Even though I'm weakened right now, how can I not open a damn banana peel?"

"That's not a banana," Gunnar said.

She cast a cold glance at him, and he covered his mouth with his hand.

She released aura into her hand and used it like a knife and struck it. Her strike left a small cut near the base.

She had to swing her hand a few more times before finally breaking it.

"Thank you," Gunnar grabbed the banana-like fruit and ran out.

"H-Hey!" she frowned. "What a shameless guy." She then had to work hard to cut another of those fruits. She had to use all of her strength to peel it. "This better taste good."

She took a bite of it.

It was easy to chew on, but it tasted a thousand times better than your average banana.

Her eyes lit up not due its overwhelmingly sweet taste, but she found her headache disappearing.

And then, she felt a stinging pain in her shoulder.

She removed the bandage, which was Gunnar's shirt and looked at her injury.

Blood spilled out at first, but she could feel that the blood leakage soon stopped.

"T-This is…" she was pleasantly surprised by the fruit's healing property. "It's no ordinary fruit, huh." She felt the need to eat more, and she did. The pressure behind her eyes faded away as if it had never existed.

Gunnar, however, was still unable to peel the fruit. He was struggling like a stupid little monkey. No amount of biting, throwing, stomping worked on it. "It's hard as a turtle shell!"

"Why the hell is this so tough?" In the end, he returned to the room, only to see more than half dozen peels on the floor, and Raha eating another. "EHH?! This isn't fair!" He ran over to her. "Give me one."

"Hmph," she tossed the peel at his feet, and he ended up slipping on it and falling flat pathetically. "These fruits are not just tasty but have great healing properties. My arm didn't regrow, but at least the bleeding fully stopped, and I feel energized. Let's check what the last room has to offer."

"W-Wait, peel one fruit for me, too," Gunnar demanded like a child.

She glanced back at him. "Is that how one requests others?"

"Oh Great Raha of Immortal Sword Sect…" he increased his voice. "I'm hungry. Please help me!"

(He doesn't have any pride, does he?) She then cut two fruits for him and peeled them.

Unlike her who ate the fruits bit by bit, Gunnar put the whole fruit in his mouth and chewed on it.

She grew a bit anxious that he might choke himself to death.

Nevertheless, Gunnar finished swallowing the two bananas in seconds and said, "More! Please!"

However, Raha walked out of the room. Stepping on the immortium didn't make her feel as uncomfortable as before.

"Your complexion looks better after eating those bananas," Gunnar glanced back at the fruit room. "Did you notice," he said quietly, "how the immortium took something from you and then the fruit room gave something back? I think this place holds more secrets than we think."

"Let's see what's in the last room," she tried to break the door in the same fashion, but this door proved to be sturdier than she thought.

Her attacks left bits of cracks, but she wasn't able to completely cut it.

She had to rest for a minute and then attack again.

Like this, it took her almost an incense stick of time to finally break the door.

There was only one thing inside this room. A stone-staircase that was going up into the ceiling.

Raha's eyes enlarged in delight. "It's our way out! We can escape from this place!"

Gunnar, standing at the back, stared at the staircase as if it were another test.

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